


The Literary Club From Some Place In Japan And The Swim Club From Somewhere Else In Japan Meet Up And A Lot Of Stuff Goes Down

by Oreki (orphan_account), orphan_account



Category: Free!, Hyouka & Kotenbu Series
Genre: Gen, i think that's all the characters but eh who knows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-23 17:56:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1574486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Oreki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title courtesy of Fall Out Boy.<br/>Oreki Houtarou has a cousin, and his name happens to be Haruka Nanase. Of course, any guardians will make their children get out-and-about during summer vacation, even lazy, energy-conserving Houtarou's - and what better place to go than Iwatobi?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay i admit it i don't even listen to fall out boy, but rose thought the title was good so. also yeah i promise i'm gonna finish that other thing i have going (gods&minimums).

Not gonna lie, I was pretty tuckered when I trudged over the threshold into the comfort of my house.

However, that sense of comfort immediately vanished as I saw my older sister. Yeah, Tomoe was home - that was never a good sign. With a sigh, I slipped my shoes off and stepped into the hallway, muttering, "I'm home." Almost immediately, I regretted it. Probably should've kept my mouth shut and gone straight to my room; I could have saved some energy and avoided attracting Tomoe's attention, killing two birds with one stone. But it was too late for that now. She'd most definitely noticed.

"Oh, Houtarou! You're back!" Tomoe said, swinging around so that she faced me. From the gleam in her eyes, I knew she had something cooked up, and I turned away from her slightly. "So cold. Anyway, my dear little brother, do you have any plans for summer vacation?" she continued.

"Of course. Sleep."

"That doesn't count." I groaned. What did she even have in mind? If it was anything like last summer, I was probably going to die. The one lifeguard incident had used enough energy to last me at least half a year or so, and I was definitely going to avoid a repeat of that at all costs. Thus, I was dreading her next words for good reason.

"Okay, Houtarou! You're going to Iwatobi to spend summer break with your cousin!" Tomoe declared. 

What.

I opened my mouth and as prepared to give a convincing argument why I should _not_ go to Iwatobi, something along the lines of "If I expend more energy than I have to it will be terrible, and also I like sleeping", but decided not to in the face of my sister's determination. There was a steely gleam in her eyes that warned me not to say anything or I would go from "little brother" to "temporary punching bag". That would almost definitely end up badly. Better try to convince her some other way, then.

"Which cousin." Okay, not a good tactic. It just made me sound interested in the vacation, when I most definitely was not interested in the vacation. Dammit, Houtarou. Good job.

"Haruka Nanase. Remember him?"

"Oh. The one who was borderline obsessed with swimming?"

Surprisingly, Aniki didn't try to correct me or say that I should probably say that in a nicer way - maybe because she knew I wouldn't really do it anyway. "Yeah, that one. His parents are usually out during the summer, so you'll be going to Iwatobi to hang out. Cool, right?" Oh, boy. If she thought that was cool, Tomoe really needed to get her priorities straight.

I groaned, then said, "When did I agree to this?", not expecting a real answer. She was probably gonna say, _You didn't!_ or something.

"You didn't," Tomoe said. See? I told you.

With a groan, I recognized my overwhelming defeat in this conversation and knew instinctively that nothing would be able to sway my sister from her path. I hefted my schoolbag over my shoulder as I trudged out of the room, and oozed my way up the stairs, sluglike. That was quite enough energy wasting for one day - I needed sleep, and I needed it fast. As soon as I got to my bed, I dropped face-first on it and was dead to the world.

 

* * *

 

 

"Oreki-san!"

I blanched as the perky voice found its way over to my desk at the back of the room. A quick glance around told me that yes, it was Chitanda, and yes, she was at the door to the classroom. Oh, boy. With a sigh, I slid the rest of my books out of my schoolbag and stood up. She dashed over to meet me halfway, then stopped and asked, "Oreki-san, are you coming for club activities this afternoon?"

"Mm," I said. She took that as a yes and smiled, tilting her head slightly. Then she followed that up with a _Then, I'll be seeing you later_ , or something. I nodded, and Chitanda stepped out of the room, her eyes bright and as inquisitive as ever. _  
_

I had to keep the fact that I was going to Iwatobi away from her. Otherwise, she'd somehow get the word out to Satoshi and Ibara, too - and knowing them, they'd hitch a ride.

Once again, as I did everyday, I went through the motions of school, jotted down a few notes. When the lunch bell rang and I was just putting all my things away, Satoshi turned in his seat to face me, his box lunch neatly packed as usual. "Hey, Houtarou!"

I grunted. He laughed and unwrapped his lunch, taking off the lid after setting it on my desk. I scooted my lunch (in a plastic bag. I was cheap and lazy) away from his slightly, and picked up a juice box from said lunch. "So, are you busy over summer break?" Satoshi asked. I blinked, and set my juice down.

"Yes," I replied, completely seriously.

"With what?"

 "Sleeping." A little fib wouldn't harm anyone.

He snickered. "That doesn't count as a pastime, Houtarou! If you're not busy, why not go out for Karaoke and ice cream with Mayaka, Chitanda, and me?" Almost immediately, I turned my head to the side and shot his offer down.

"I just told you I was busy."

He laughed again, brushed me off, and said, "We'll get you out and about before long!" I merely grunted and went back to eating, and so did he. Before long, the bell to signal the end of lunch rang, and Satoshi stood to take his trash to the garbage, snagging mine, too - I was often too lazy to and would just shove the wrappers and such into my desk.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully - the only thing that I actually paid a little attention to was the teacher reminding the class about summer break during the last class of the day. It started tomorrow, so the reminder was basically not to come to school unless you wanted to hang out at the school gates. I sighed again, this time imperceptibly - I was really going to have to go to Iwatobi after all, wasn't I? Before the man could finish speaking, the bell rang, and dozens of chairs scraped back from the desks they were placed at. He shouted one last phrase: "Have a good time over break!"

Well, I wasn't ready to have a good time just yet. Still had club activities.

As the flood of students streamed out of the doors of the classroom, I took my time putting all of my books up. Satoshi hung over the back of his chair, watching; he'd gotten all of his stuff ready in a flash. Finally, I stood, and the two of us headed toward the door.

By the time we got to the clubroom, Ibara and Chitanda were already there, having an animated discussion about some manga or another.

"See, the protagonist in this one is really good. They've all got great designs!"

"And the art is very pretty, Mayaka-san! I can see why you like it."

"Right, Chii-chan? See, this one looks a little like you..."

Satoshi cleared his throat and waved a hand at them in the doorway. "Hi!"

Immediately, Mayaka leaped up and her chair was shoved back with a clatter. "F-Fuku-chan!" she said, coloring slightly. Probably thinking something about, _oh, no. Satoshi has caught me geeking out about manga. How terrible_. In reality, Satoshi wasn't likely to care that she had been talking about manga; he was that type of person, at least to my knowledge. I moved from behind him and nudged my way into the club room so I could set down my bag and slouch into a chair. Energy conserving: my type of thing. Yes.

Chitanda immediately turned to me: "Oreki-san, if you're not too busy over the break - "

"I am."

"Oh," Chitanda said, and leaned back a little. I felt kind of bad, but there was no helping it.

"Houtarou, you're being kind of dodgy!" Satoshi said, grinning at me. I turned my head again, refuting the statement silently. "Say, is Tomoe at home?" he asked.

Caught off-guard by the question, I grunted an affirmative. "Yeah." Seeing a crafty smirk atop his face, I immediately knew I had made a fatal mistake. So much for keeping my vacation "plans" away from them - I was about to get found out, and in less than twenty-four hours since the plans were made.

"Right! Mayaka, can I use your phone? I'm gonna call Houtarou's sister," Satoshi sang. Mayaka begrudgingly gave up her phone ("Fuku-chan, where's yours?") and he quickly found Tomoe's number in her contacts. The phone had barely started ringing before my sister answered, and Satoshi put her on speaker. "Hello, Tomoe-san!"

"Oh, is that Satoshi?" Tomoe said, with a large, loud yawn. "Good to hear from you!"

"Tomoe-san, I was wondering - is Houtarou going anywhere during summer break?" Satoshi said, still with the same infuriating smirk.

"Aniki," I hissed, but she ignored me.

"Oh, yeah! Houtarou's gonna go visit his cousin in Iwatobi!"

Chitanda gasped in admiration. She didn't seem like the type to go out of the province a lot, so that was probably why. Mayaka looked at the phone in mild curiosity. "Houtarou has a cousin?" she asked. "Is the cousin as lazy as he is?" I scowled at her.

My sister laughed. "Actually, Haruka really likes sports and stuff. So, no, not as lazy."

"Haruka?" Chitanda chirped. "Are they a girl?"

"No," I said, speaking for the first time in the conversation. "He's actually a boy."

Tomoe made a _hmmmm_ sound, evidently deep in thought. I imitated it with a lilting pitch at the end, so it was slightly questioning. She took the hint and said, "I was thinking it would be nice if friends came along with you on the trip, Houtarou!" Oh, no. My worst nightmare. "So, what do you all say to coming along with him?" I groaned. Aniki just had to do that, didn't she. And I couldn't even say much about it, because it wasted too much energy and I didn't have that much to complain about anyway.

"Yes!" There was Chitanda.

"O-okay." Mayaka, with a more hesitant answer. Bless the lord for this girl's common sense.

"I'll come, too!" Satoshi said.

I let my head slip out of my hands and land on the table with a dull _thunk_.

 

* * *

 

 

Friday passed quickly, and with many draining phone calls to and from the rest of the club members. Finally, I flopped on my bed, my energy reserves spent. My things were packed: we were spending a few weeks there, so I had a suitcase full of clothing and other necessities, and my carry-on bag had food and books in it. At least, enough to sustain me to and from Iwatobi.

My phone buzzed on the table. Groaning, I sat up and picked it up. "Hello."

"Hello, Oreki-san!" Chitanda's cheery voice sounded over the line. Why was she calling?

"Mhm," I said. She took that as a cue to go on, which was the right thing to do. I was in no mood to elaborate on my wishes; in fact, I was draped half over the switched-off kotatsu that I hadn't moved since winter.

"Could you say thank you to your sister for me, Oreki-san? It was very nice of her to invite us on this trip!" Chitanda said. I grunted, then covered the phone and called, "Aniki, Chitanda says thanks."

"No problem!" came the muffled reply from downstairs.

"'No problem', she says," I relayed through the phone. Chitanda giggled.

"I'm looking forward to this trip, Oreki-san! Don't forget to get a good night's sleep - we'll need to catch a bus pretty early tomorrow morning in order to get where we need to on time!" she chided in a gentle manner. I nodded and grunted one more time, then mustered my remaining vestiges of willpower to actually form some words.

"See you tomorrow, then," was what I mumbled. She gave a bright, affirmative reply, and I turned my phone off. I trudged over to the light switch to turn the lights off, and sighed as I did so. Finally, sleep.

Once again, I was out cold as soon as my head hit the futon.


	2. Yeah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lately, there has been something off about Makoto.

I graciously dove into the crisp, cool water. I reveled in the feeling of the water gliding against my skin, hugging my body in a sweet but newly terrifying manner. The water is my safe place and gave me so much, yes, but it could also take so much away. Before there was nothing to ever fear despite knowing the waters ferocity. Now? There was a little etching of fear just a small amount that it would take Makoto like it almost had last summer. Last summer had shown me that. Last summer had actually shown me a lot of things. Hell, that whole year had been quite the roller coaster. I felt a burning sensation in my chest. I guess I should go back up and breathe.   
I swam back up and took a well deserved, hearty breath. I shook some of the water out of my hair and eyed the area. I could see a large figure off to the other side of the pool near the gates. Their legs were immersed into the water and their eyes focused on me only. 

"Haru..."

Makoto whispered softly almost lost in the act of saying my name itself. I turned around and swiftly swam over to him. I hadn't told him I was here, but he knows me better than I know me and vice versa. Usually, he'd let me be on my own either way but there had to be something wrong if he was waiting for me.

"Makoto..."

He averts his eyes and looks at the water.

"Haru, it's getting kind of late we should start heading home, yeah?"

Then just like that he takes his legs out of the water and holds out a hand for him. Just like normal, down to the same exact too perfect. I wasn't going to let this go. I took his and let him help me up.

"Are you hungry?"

I asked. He looked away again. He never does that. Never. There are major alarms going off in my head and I'm tempted to just grab my friend and hug him silly. Before I know it though he looks back down at me and gives me another too perfect smile and responds,

"I am. What would you like to eat, Haru?"  
\--  
We ended up buying fish to cook at my house. 

Makoto held the bag in his left hand as we walked quietly next to one another. Typically, I would enjoy the silence of us if it was our typical comfortable silence but this silence wasn't a comfortable one. Makoto was silent because something was wrong and I was going to figure out.

"Makoto, are you okay?"

Makoto stopped in his tracks, dumbfounded. After a few minutes, he gave me an incredibly funny face that I'm sure Nagisa would have snapped at least forty pictures of and posted online.

"Where did that come from? Of course, I'm okay!"

He replied hastily.

"You're lying. Whenever you think no one is looking you look really upset. This has been going on since this year started, what's wrong?"

I continued watching how Makoto tried but ultimately failed at hiding his feelings from me, of all people. My best friend is an idiot I swear.

"I-I...Haru, where has this come from?"

He rebutted. Nice try but no mackerel. I stared him down in the eyes and I could see it. Whatever was eating him alive was there and I was going to find out what it was and get rid of it.

"What's wrong, Makoto? You can't lie to me, I'll know and I won't let this go."

I spoke harshly. Makoto looked down at his feet and everything around them fell uncomfortably silent again. Makoto began to dig around in his pocket and pulled out his phone. I watched as he went through it until he found what he was looking for. Suddenly he flipped his phone around to face me and I saw it. It was a date. Not just any date, the date of our graduation and most likely the last day we'll ever see one another again.

Oh.

"Graduation's coming so quickly and, I, you're my best friend, Haru...I don't want to move away and lose touch and just lose my best friend because that's what always happens to people after high school. That always happens and you're so important to me and I l-"

My phone began to ring and he stopped. We both stared each other down. His face was flushed from admitting this confession. What was he about to say? I have no idea. I want to know. Hopefully it's something like 'I love you' but the chance of him saying that are slim to none. My eyes flickered from the pocket where my phone was being held back to him.

"You 'l', what?"

He looked off to the side and laughed a bit.

"I'd like for us to hang out like we used to for a bit. Now we have all these friends and I love them to death but it'd be nice for just you and me to enjoy ourselves like we used to when were kids, you know?"

Not what I was looking for but close enough.

"We should use this summer when we're not practicing, maybe we could just pick a day to hang out at the old spot we used to. Have a picnic...enjoy ourselves like we were that age again before having to..."

My phone was going off again. Quickly I took my phone out of my pocket and went to turn it off until I realized it was Tomoe and then I definitely turned it off and took out the battery. Makoto looked me with misty eyes and for a moment I had forgotten we were in the midst of a very emotional conversation. I took a few strides towards him and gave him a hug. Maybe he wanted to keep his best friend, maybe he wanted more like I want more; either way I was going to make sure the rest of our time together was going to last well on into adulthood, especially our ambiguously planned picnic date. 

"...Haru"

"Yeah?"

"Who was calling?"

"No one."

Tomoe called, but like I was going to ruin this very nice, comfortable hug over my cousin calling.

"Was it Tomoe?"

I stayed silent.

"Haru..."

No, Makoto, don't ruin the moment talking about my cousin. Let's keep hugging for an inappropriate amount of time.

"Haru...you do remember your cousin is coming to stay with us this summer right? The quiet one that slept for four days and nearly gave me a heart attack when I sat on him on the couch when we were younger."

"Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"I remembered Makoto."

I didn't but it's not like I would say that out loud. Wait, shit. I hope he didn't read my mind.

"No you didn't."

"No, I definitely did."

Makoto broke the hug and put his hands on his hips giving me the biggest mom look I have ever witnessed. This is the sort of look that would put my mom's mom look to shame.

"We should cook this before it goes bad."

After that I just bolted down the road.

"Haru, fuc-damn it Haru wait up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I'm Rose. I'm really awful about actually getting to writing things so bare with me. Hopefully, now that it's the summer I'll actually write more! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well as the first. Thank you very much for reading!
> 
> Beta'd by Rave.

**Author's Note:**

> it's short. i'm short (no i am. really). they will be longer in the future (at least i hit 2k words this time tho)


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